Finding Sarah

Society turns a blind eye to people with eating disorders as they are often considered as merely seeking attention. This is extremely ignorant as it goes way beyond that,’ says Finding Sarah's troubled but captivating protagonist, 26-year-old Sarah Picton. For more than nine years, Sarah has been purging her food in any place she can find: public toilets, plastic bags, coffee mugs. When she couldn't satisfy her bulimic addiction, she restricted her diet to the point that she weighed only 41 kilograms, a weight better suited to a girl less than half her age. She has lost teeth and her gag reflex. She has lost her energy and her friends. She has come close to losing her life. But then she decided to do something about it. Sarah reveals her story in brutally honest detail to author Joanne Jowell, setting herself on a path of enlightenment for herself, her family and anyone who might hear her story. No holds are barred as Sarah describes the selfishness of the illness, the shame surrounding her condition, and the deceptive ends to which she will go to hide her addiction. Along the way, Joanne meets the players in this story, including Sarah's mother, friends, ex-boyfriend and psychiatrist. And, of course, there is Sarah herself – cowed but not beaten, searching for herself even as the author does, sharing her life story so that she can reach out to the countless others who suffer in the shadow of addiction.

Joanne Jowell is a writer who lives in Cape Town. She is the author of the bestselling On the Other Side of Shame: An Extraordinary Account of Adoption and Reunion.